delirious

Hey big grizzly bear face yeah

That’s you baby

Come ‘ere and

Maul me a little at least

until my racoon grin gets all muzzled up

or I can rummage around and find

a sober second thought I mean I always knew that bears liked the dump

but really

c’mon now

this bitch is crazy

 

I’m running plays with no plan here I am

Blank in the head and my heart is

Holding a gay pride parade I need some

sort of government crackdown but I’m

romancing like Liberia and try as you might

to talk me down

I just end up putting you in my mouth

 

Hey big scratchy beard head yeah

That would still be you baby

You palm my neck when we kiss well

Lay up boy lay up cause

This girl here got no game

I am rambling inside I am daydreaming

About gardening with you in my 60s

To Mammy – Year 5

I don’t want to plan this poem

Mammy mammy

I just want to find you in it

Sitting in a nutshell

 

I don’t want to plan anything mammy

And that’s why I’m walking around

With a rich girls bruises

And that’s why I’m walking around

With my eyes closed

Running into

Every year of life

Like a herd in a terror run

I’m stampeding mammy

Maybe it’s the Indian in me

 

 

I’m turning more Indian mammy

Have you noticed

You’re so dark too with your

Black mans hair

And your black mans eye

And your black mans soul

Crooning motown

The way black people mean it

And well maybe

The pain is making us more ethnic

 

I am crooning around life

With my moccasins on

trying not to alert the crowds

to my colossal failures

with my braids in my hair

I just look like a hippie

But it’s not the granola in me

It’s the blackfoot

The pounding pain of a people

Shutting down

The pounding pain

of coping

The native way.

 

 

I have so much to say today mammy

That I shouldn’t say on stage

And I want you to put your hands on my back

And heal me mammy

With your god power

And I don’t want to have this much to say today

Mammy

Because this is your Christmas present

And I am wrapping it badly

I want to make up rhymes

That dress you up in

a literal picture of how

precious you are to this whole room

but I can’t mammy

I am not ok

I am not ok

And I can’t write anything without that coming out

Like a pow wow ripping right from my gut

My feet are shuffling along

And my heart is lying on the sidewalk

Outside of the drugstore

Begging for Listerine

 

 

Just anything to numb me

You know

I wonder if I have spent so much of my life

Trying to make men love me

That I have gotten too good at it

And now I can’t keep the wrong ones off me

Or the right ones off me

And there’s boys in my lap

And on my mouth

And in my body

And on my tits

And theres boys rampaging around every part of me

Keeping me up

And I am worn out

It is 5am

And I have had enough customers

You know mammy

I have had enough customers now

That its getting to the point where

I can’t barricade that flood back

I have had enough customers now mammy

I am tired

And I want to curl up

Somewhere where they can’t get to me.

 

 

Because out in the world they all get to me

I hold the door open in my clingy robe

I beg them to come in.

 

 

 

Have you seen my son lately mammy?

Do you think I deserve him?

Do you

Do you think acting like a 16 year old is good for him?

Do you

Do you think its ok to be raised

By someone who is wilting?

I want to make him a little cushion

That wraps around him

And keeps him cozy

And cushioned

From his sad mommy

And the little knives in the air

That turn out to be reality

When I was younger

I used to wish something hard would happen

So I could capture some character

Like a bug in a jar

I didn’t get it mammy

That the hard stuff

Steals your character away

I am not ok

I am not ok

 

 

I said goodbye to john today

And saw the shell of a man that

Thrived before he met me

The great destroyer of men

The great atom bomb on the healthy male

Oh alice schwarz

Don’t let her make you think

The girls a gift

The girls a fucking curse

Don’t let her make you think

That the stars are shining brighter

When you’re wrapped up with her

Sky gazing at the beach

Don’t let her make you think

That she loves you better than other girls

Just wait boy

Just wait boy

She will love you so much worse

She will make you beg for years

Yelling through your wounds

That she was so good for you

 

And I see this in the face of a man that

I never wanted to see it in

And it just confirms it all mammy

You know

That I have to stop running

So fucking fast from myself

That the rez is what the rez does

Because of generations of pain

Passed on through a bottle

And blankets

And one day

We have to sit down with it

With a peace pipe

And talk

And listen

 

 

 

And you

You faced bigger giants than this

And won

A little black female david

You are the most unlikely

Kind of champion

And it gives me hope

That I can get rougher

And rougher still

That I can make my armour

and look like a fool

poised for a battle against no one

because perhaps there is a tool

that you find in steadier times

to unscrew

and unscrew

until you are sitting on the sidewalk

in your street clothes

laughing at will

 

and so tonight

I’m crawling into that walnut

Or the hope that I find one

And rocking away with you

Until we feel a little better

A little more ok

A little more ok

coincide

 

 

You must have sent me here

or maybe I just listen to god

on Wednesdays

My days with you

The only person I know who I believe

believes in god

I sat down to write your story

and god interrupted

He said I’m from Mumbai

She asked him when were you first published

twenty seven he said

She said you must have been so happy

He said no

I was relieved

That all that hope

Didn’t go to waste

 

 

And over by the coffee bar

He said I haven’t seen my kids all week

And he said I haven’t seen my kids in two weeks

And they went silent and stared down

At the kaleidoscope in their cups

And I knew two things at once

about life

I was fine

And I was going to be fine.

Canadian Long Poem

This is what I see when I

 

 

1.

 

Face North

straight face into the wind

lean into that wide angle lens

to catch a picture of a country

making arches with the

bridge of its back.

 

 

Here is the Northern direction

looking happy as a hudderite

the movie scene wilderness

all covered in flies

one stark red hole

being thrust from the South.

 

red soft baby flies

kneading into my skirt seams

they’re along for the ride

to the fox and the firkin

they’ll be there when my thighs get sticky

brown from the brunette’s beer

sticky white from a 21 year old attempt at life.

 

 

The sun don’t hit straight on

if your face is in the mountains

it just wipes down your cheeks

and does your laundry

it leaves those marks around your mouth

for another time

a different meal.

 

This is a straight faced girl

who burrows like a mole

heading for an underground

we all ignore at the dinner table.

 

 

this is a short red skirt

with two white stains

bracing for the bomb

of a cock sliding in.

 

This is the northern way

stay quiet while our little girls roll down their panties

and bend over

for a little blue.

 

 

 

2.

 

I found you over there

when the sunrise seared my retina

at seven in the morning

through one of those windows that faced east

 

You were stark morning mad

with your mouth wide open

for some antichrist tongue

but you were stuck oh lord

too bad so sad

knee deep in the mud of St. Lawrence

Face east

to the shiny cement steps

of a parliament building chewing its cud

tapping the glass of its watch

oh no

no time for you darling

we deal with radical bisexuals on Sunday

I turned around

and put my pigtails away

 

We used to smoke at 4:20

Strolling past the house of commons

your mouth fresh from under my belt

black leather lips

we would harden our soft parts slowly

as the echo hit back

from those old white walls.

 

This is where the heart sinks

replaced by a gallbladder in the night

those sneaky bile boys

rocking into an empty body

a brain full of broken laws

 

this is the way out east

our little girls

don’t elect nothing no more.

 

3.

 

 

Down south

feels just like home don’t it?

one big Alabama veranda

iced tea and fried chicken

freezing in a minus thirty wind chill

 

I lost my training bra

three clicks after high school striking twelve

i slid to home base

with my legs in a vee

wearing my new red lingerie

and my flag on my tits

 

no one noticed me in San Francisco

two thousand and one

except for this leggy blonde with a dick

who said go back to Canada

when I asked, how much eh?

trying to get a taste of the beaver

where I thought it was hiding

 

a young virgin in the states

don’t have too much protection

and in no time

I found an exchange student from Seattle

who was willing to step across

the divide with me

and make a five second joke

on the free trade border

 

I was strolling alone on that dirt path

lassie by my side

Southward bound

my country was all tied up at my knees

and rotting in the heat

these stains kept creeping up my red dress

and wouldn’t wipe off

 

I was so star studded

opening my thighs to girls

who looked like pageant winners

 

 

4.

 

Face west

you’ve got the rattle of spurs

clinking through the frontier

of the courtroom hush

you’re making gabble in the girls here

fucked up from the other directions

 

I met a man with a gap in his teeth

he rolled down my red skirt

and got me a cloth

and when he told me to use my vote

a little whistle escaped

for my hot ass

 

it’s a heavy breath

pushing out fresh powder

and slipping into a Vancouver quiet

on your toe edge

cutting off the bra straps

of the Canadian shield

 

I made room for a mountain

of two big arms with no scars

two solid white frames

for the red maple leaf he took

off my heart

and put in my head

 

 

I have tighter socks now

from less nights pulling them down

by day I breathe my heat

on cute little snowflakes

and by night

I lock my rage in a briefcase

where it rattles away until the sun comes up.

 

This is the way out West.

 

young love

for you whose birthday would have been
been august 7th like mine
for you who could have had a gap tooth
and over sized hands
you roar on in my
minds maternal playroom
and most days
I even miss you

most days I even imagine
what it could have been
if I didn’t tap up on drugs
and suck you out
to the tune of Mark Darcy
spitting out the loving quotations
of momma jane

most days
my only baby
I feel that spot in my thorax where you held on too tight
and I apologize

you live on like a pain in my breast
dismissed as heart burn
and I keep remarking shit like
God, I shouldn’t eat so much cheese
but the magnitude of my missed chances

lives on

in every burp

if you were around I would say
baby today
its been four years since you were concieved
on an unlikely couch
in a cabin in whistler
and who could have known
that in a white town that felt so foreign
I had with me
the most familiar of people

if you were around today I would say
baby look
my life is only better
and that feeling of living for you
is what makes me more than I ever was
when I was a one
and don’t believe in the bullshit
of no regrets
I would swear to you
baby fuck that
there are some jackets that don’t come undone

baby you know that
most days
i wear you around with me

Most days when I pass 1166 Cambie
I can’t help but hear the alarms
you know my little darling
that an office that checks you for weapons
is an office you enter unarmed
and in the minefield of the after math
baby see
I was dodging bullets on the fly
baby do
I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun
to see the glint in your eye

I knew by that look
baby I know your little mind
that you were fine

that you weren’t going anywhere
and my decisions off the cuff
were wishful erasers on a dark crayola bluff

my baby most days
you are the only person I talk to
in one sided conversations
about who I am
and you sit patiently by
wide eyed
sucking on my conscience
getting pacified

most days my baby
I am trying to say
sorry my learning curve
left you in my wake.

humming

You
You are the only one
the one my heart desires

and you
put all my socks away
straight after the dryer

Travel plans

My baby snuck in
hidden in the small machinery of my electronics
he slipped through the scans of the government agents
only to show up, whirring through my
headphone wires

I play him in technicolour
sprawled across the glass window in perfect 3d projection
I play him in blue ink
seeping through the mechanics of a bic pen
he plays my cello organs
vibrating the words out of my mouth

uh oh

I’ve only known you three months and already
you are a nat king cole song
already I sing you to myself
when you are out of reach

students

I can sit here
in the 3 o’clock of a rheostatics afternoon
eating muffins laced with languid terminology.
the pop culture of children in bloom.
We can sit here together in the white wash
of steamy breathing and beans screaming
at the hands of the kid who didn’t make it,
and we can say to each other, ‘oh
I found a huge word this morning
just massive
marauding around the thick lips of my morning
professor, oh
you should have seen us chanting it in unison
injecting it into the dying lull of each conversation
in the room.

I can tell stories of my rhinestone demi gods
that have carried the cross of this ant colony and
martyred the finance of their lives
for the racy marquee
of their names on a course handbook

Yes, I can seperate
I can distill
our glory into a condensed chain
of facts I throw like party streamers
across this celebration room

But in the middle of this tongue wagging and
heaving breasts of information
I’m having trouble with the insects
the insects in the room are terrifying
they are picketing for love
they are picketing not being noticed
they are picketing for coffee on a wednesday
I can see at least three of four down there
that I recognize from high school

See, lately I have the sink drain suspicion
that this escalator is going down
made heavy by my egotistical backpack
my ego-freak pens and pencils
my bombastic calculator.
Lately, I’ve been waiting to tell
that sparkle in my eye
that he doesn’t trim
and I need a tylenol
that I’m tired of heavy petting

We’re in the terrible twosomes of our love affair
we have toddling comversations about creation
and we gaze like begging dogs
panting for biscuits of praise.
He’s growing boring at this party
drinking adolescent drinks and
I will leave him I will
I will leave him I will but

he’s just so fragile right now
what with the infestation and all

oh yes, the insects
I saw my ant mother
tentactles and all
she was twitching and knobbing around
speaking in sparks to the other ants
giving directions
and for one second in the flash
of a voltage exchange I understood her saying,
‘she’s taking credit for St. Patricks day
and even her own birth
she lives in a spic and span home
but throws my money around like marrow
to that pack of lions that
follow her everywhere’

I’m beginning to think that everyone over 25 is insectual
I’m beginning to think
that the real reward
is that space in my head where the rotovap smiles
and revolves in a planetary sheen of logic
that you should spend your ideas
like african currency
I’m beginning to think I’d rather
march two by two in the rain
a book in one hand
one hand in the other.

terminal

I saw your hat bob through the terminal
flipping tassels to the other toques
and soon all that was left was a little blue beakon
bobbing in the distance
I breathed out a week full of empty air
and rolled it for your red carpet
so you’d arrive in style

everyone must have turned
everyone must have turned I would
I would have a taken your picture
and touched your dark hand
and sighed to the symphony of a stewardess’ drone
cutting in and out of our atmosphere

I could have sat silent in the drum of my double heartbeats
I could have watched your antics through a half cracked smile
in the drum of my double heartbeats
I could have shook down to our tender fault lines
in the quiver of a blink

and you there with yourself outstretched
and your neck on a string
and your love on your tray table
you there with your jokes about safety procedures
and barf bags
and you there with a mountain hug
and a smoked cedar kiss

and you there whispering words out of my lungs
who never would have made it
through the battle with my throat
if it wasn’t for your eyes in my windows
and the double drum of my heartbeat

But my oldsmobile is shaking no

Your eyes are already through security
and it takes more than half a woman
to run through an airport
so I’m sitting below the speed limit
behind a passable semi truck
puttering back through the sunday drivers
I’m passing through the pit stops
of hyper ventilation
trying to find my feet for the pedals
and there’s so much honking
and the double drum beat of my heart
and I’m becoming the stranger
in my default setting
driving through a glassy october